''It was a pretty regular game-day crowd,'' said John Doheny, a manager at the downtown restaurant The Grill.

The crush came after the Georgia fans trudged out of Sanford Stadium shortly before 11 p.m., disconsolate after seeing new Georgia coach Mark Richt begin his career in the SEC 0-1 on a fourth-quarter touchdown by South Carolina.

Many fans headed to all-night restaurants like The Grill, which recorded one of its highest-ever sales totals on the 11-7 shift.

''It was almost a record shift,'' Doheny said.

Around the corner on Broad Street, the story was similar at Gyro Wrap, another popular restaurant.

But the crush of fans after the game kept the restaurant open until 1:45 a.m. Sunday, and even then customers were trying to come in, he said.

''I think it delays the crowd, and gives them longer to liquor up. That's the main thing. They come a little later and they come a little drunker,'' he said.

The crush of Saturday night business carried over into Sunday, where people still poured into the restaurants Sunday afternoon.

''It's been like a Friday,'' Onstott said.

Police reported little out of the ordinary following the game -- the traffic moved out slowly, there were a few drunken fights, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Georgia home football game.

''This is one of the largest ball games as far as people I've seen, and afterward there were a lot of intoxicated people'' -- and a few fights -- said Lt. Richard Norton of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department.

One fan from Monticello flagged down a police officer to report being assaulted by a man with a blue backpack. The fan was attacked as he walked to the game shortly after 7 p.m., he told police.

When the 27-year-old fan yelled ''Go Dawgs!'' at a man who was walking by, the man took off his pack and hit the Bulldog fan with it, twice, the fan said.

The fan said he had taken only two drinks, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report.

Someone slashed the tires on eight SUVs and other vehicles at a Prince Avenue fraternity house Saturday morning, and throughout the day on Saturday police ordered illegally parked vehicles towed, including seven on one stretch of Cloverhurst Street.

As is becoming typical with UGA football games, many more people poured into town than had tickets. Athens-Clarke police officers downtown ''were pretty busy even during the game,'' Norton said.

Traffic moved slowly but steadily heading out of town after the game, Norton said.

Cars backed up at the intersection of the Athens Perimeter and Lexington Road, where a series of traffic signals slowed down traffic, he said.

''It was slow getting them out, but nothing unusual,'' he said.

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Monday, September 10, 2001.